Creating sound investment opportunities

November 04, 2011

Mallinckrodt names winners of penthouse design contest

After a month of research and hard work, five students from Harrington College of Design in Chicago were named winners of a penthouse design competition sponsored by Mallinckrodt in the Park, an active-adult condominium development in Wilmette.

With just one penthouse remaining in the conversion of historic Mallinckrodt College, Reuben Warshawsky and David Rosen, co-founders of CLG Realty and co-managers of Mallinckrodt Renaissance LLC, came up with the idea for a design competition that would help buyers visualize a home in the 2,952-square-foot, two-story space. They invited Harrington students and alumni to submit concepts for floor plans, finishes and decor. More than 30 aspiring and professional designers answered the call.

Mallinckrodt in the Park, an active-adult community in Wilmette, recently won approval from the village of Wilmette to lower its resident age restriction to 55 from 62.

The new guidelines require one member of the household to be at least 55. There is no age restriction on any other member of the household. The petition to lower the age restriction at Mallinckrodt was proposed by Mallinckrodt Renaissance LLC, the owner of the remaining 20 condominium units, with the full support of Mallinckrodt in the Park Condominium Association and the other owners at the property.

(Crain’s) — A former head of operations for Zeller Realty Group and a longtime finance executive with Sears Roebuck & Co. are cutting their teeth as vulture investors by taking over a failed senior condominium project in Wilmette.

Unlike many others looking to capitalize on the real estate market’s collapse, the two men, Reuben Warshawsky and David E. Rosen, managed to buy a property just months after teaming up. The two brought in an Oregon-based private-equity firm, Aspen Capital Funding, to buy the distressed loan on Mallinckrodt in the Park last fall in a blind, online auction.